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One means of reducing the heat stress caused by wearing protective clothing is to eliminate the air layers between the skin and layers of the ensemble. In order to evaluate the effectiveness of this concept, four unacclimated males wearing either the current Canadian Forces chemical protective overgarment, an individually-tailored skintight protective garment or CF combat uniform participated in a series of experiments conducted at 40C and low relative humidity. Each was instrumented with a rectal thermistor, donned the clothing and walked on a treadmill at 5 km hr 1(-) and 2% grade for 90 min, until his rectal temperature reached 39C or he requested to withdraw from the experiment. The results of this preliminary investigation indicate that there appears to be some advantage to wearing the skintight clothing under these conditions.